Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Utopia, Marxism, and Full Employment

Granted, I am not well versed in the concepts of Utopia, Marxism, or the global market and economy, so what I say needs to be taken with a grain of salt and where so ever I am misguided a redirection would be most certainly appreciated. Saying that, it seems to me that Jameson is saying that, “this particular root of all evil identified as unemployment,” is the direct culprit for all of the vile that is found is society, “crime, war, degraded mass culture, drugs, violence, boredom, the lust for power, the lust for distraction, the lust for nirvana, sexism, racism,” or is he being sarcastic and using irony so that we see the utter absurdity of the notion? From my experience all of the vile characteristics he describes cannot necessarily be directly linked to unemployment.

The concept of Utopia which I find (as it has been presented to me) closer to Communism (not in the negative connotation but in the idealist way), that is where everything is communal in which one works for the greater community and where no one receives more than is absolutely necessary to survive (this of course is in relation to unemployment and capitalism) and this something that we truly have never seen in any society. Where Capitalism, which I should define my concept and to me Capitalism is most exemplified by publicly traded companies. These companies drive the working force to work as much as possible, to pump out as much product as possible, at the cheapest price possible. To convince the rest of the public that what ever the product is, it will enhance their life so greatly that it is no longer a want but indeed a necessity. Furthermore, the obligation of said company is not to the greater good, it is not to their employees, but it is to their stockholders otherwise known has the owners of the company. The way I am reading it is that Jameson would like to infuse principles of Utopia with principles from Marxism, into our now Capitalized society, which seems to me that in a Capitalistic society there is no, as Jameson has pointed out, way to establish full employment. In order to have the utopian requirement of full employment then would you not need to have given up the capitalistic society as well? Or is that the point he is trying to make?